Fakewhale in dialogue with Paula Ferrés
We have been closely following the research of Paula Ferrés, whose project Volumetric Representation of Performative Spaces investigates how image-based and scanning technologies transform performative environments from ephemeral, embodied experiences into permanent digital residues. Her work challenges traditional regimes of documentation and archiving, opening up new possibilities in which memory is no longer framed as objective and complete, but as fragmentary, co-authored, and performative. At Fakewhale, we had the pleasure of engaging in conversation with her to explore not only the theoretical and methodological framework behind her research, but also the broader implications it has for spectatorship, presence, and the ways we design, record, and remember space.
Fakewhale:In your work you emphasize that the transition from physical to digital space is not merely a technical translation, but an ontological transformation of space itself. How did this awareness shape your methodological choices throughout the research?
Paula Ferrés: While performative spaces are live actions based on presence, their spatio-temporal qualities are reversed when digitized, shifting from ephemeral and physical, an embodied action to permanent and digital when visualized. I therefore needed to get closer to understanding the shift from presence as a live spectator to consuming a space through digital means. Instead of aiming to reproduce physical reality, I focused on approaches that could preserve the relational, temporal, and performative qualities of space, while also exploring how these are altered through digital mediation. This led to a sequential exploration of different capture tools, culminating in volumetric scanning, which allowed me to interrogate both presence and representation while incorporating audience perception as a co-creative agent.
Referring to post-phenomenological perspectives, you describe technologies as never neutral, but as active mediators of experience. How do you see this mediation redefining the perception of the body and presence within performative spaces?
From a postphenomenological perspective, technologies are active mediators that shape experience and meaning. In my research, the act of capturing performative space with digital tools highlighted how mediation privileges certain fragments over others, shaping what is preserved and what is omitted. The body’s presence in the space is thus reframed while consuming a digital experience, this one is navigated visually rather than experienced and understood within the entire bodily existence. In the mediated embodiment, spatial perception becomes inseparable from the technological interface. This revealed that presence is not lost but transformed, inhabiting thus environments of representation.
One of the most striking aspects of your approach is the importance of subjectivity in documentation with partial archives constructed from multiple audience perspectives. What challenges and experiments did you encounter in translating this idea into a concrete methodology?
In reality, no form of capture is ever neutral, photography and video are based on defined frames, omissions, and linearity, one one hand from Technology itself and on the other the subject behind it with its own personal perception, intention, and sociopolitical background. What I emphasize then in my work is subjectivity itself. Minding it from the act of capture and specially when assembled in a multiple perspective and collective digital scene. The archive thus emerges as a collective construct, reflecting plural experiences rather than a singular record.
Volumetric scanning emerged as the most promising mode of capture, yet integrating it into a co-authored, real-time archive brought some challenges: capturing multiple audience perspectives simultaneously, balancing technological limitations, and ensuring that the resulting digital scene reflected both the spatial composition and subjective interpretation of presence.
Your critique of photography and linear video highlights how they reduce the complexity of a performative event. Do you see volumetric methods as a way to fill this gap, or rather as a means of embracing a different kind of incompleteness, one that is more intentional and meaningful?
Volumetric methods do not aim to generate digital twins, I consider it another approach that emphasizes qualities that come closer to presence, by relying on audience participation, that when they get assembled, they generate a three-dimensional scene that is co-authored and volumetric, shaped by both: subjectivity and technological affordances. This allows presence and archive to coexist: the digital residue reflects lived experience without attempting to replicate it entirely. It acknowledges fragmentation, subjectivity, and temporality, creating a documentation that resonates with the internal logic of the performance rather than imposing visual completeness.
By positioning the audience as co-authors of the archive, your model radically shifts the notion of documentation. How do you think the role of the spectator changes when moving from observer to co-creator of performative memory?
The spectator transitions from a passive observer to an active participant in shaping spatial memory. Their perception, gestures, and capture decisions become integral to the archival process, embedding subjectivity into the final outcome. The degree of incompleteness or detail will explicitly depend on the logics of the spectators who attend the live performances.
In digital contexts, spectators navigate space visually, mediating presence through devices, and simultaneously co-constructing the archive. This model acknowledges that contemporary spectatorship involves both physical and digital engagement, redefining the role of the body and memory within ephemeral and technologically mediated spaces. The volumetric scan explicitly displays the movement and physical approach of the spectator in connection with the environment.
Contemporary spatial design practices are often shaped by the logic of the “frame,” influenced by mobile devices and social media. In what ways does your work propose an alternative to this perspectival and commercially driven reduction of space?
I have on multiple occasions designed a space anticipating ‘the frame’ specially when modeling in 3D software. Pre-locating a camera, aligning spatial conception with the logic of future visual consumption. Thus I wanted to challenge in this research the dominance of fixed frames and anticipatory visual logic by integrating spatial experience into the archival process itself. Instead of pre-determining angles, perspectives, or consumable images, the methodology unfolds in real time, allowing space to emerge through bodily presence, collective arrangements, and multiple interpretations. This approach prioritizes temporal and relational qualities over visual completeness, creating archives that reflect lived experience rather than social media aesthetics.
In your research, volumetric scanning emerges not only as a tool of capture but also as a compositional device. To what extent has technology become part of your artistic poetics, beyond serving as a methodological instrument?
Volumetric scanning functions as both a tool and a creative medium. It allows me to explore the performative qualities of space digitally, experimenting with movement, temporality, and audience interaction in ways not possible in the physical realm. Technology mediates perception and enables new compositional strategies, shaping meaning and extending my artistic process. Its possibilities and limitations are integral to my work, revealing new relationships between bodies, space, and digital interpretation.
Finally, if you were to imagine the next step of your research, would it lean more toward further technical experimentation, or toward a deeper theoretical inquiry into the cultural and social implications of digital memory?
The next step would integrate both dimensions, guided by curiosity and practice. Technical experimentation will continue to expand the possibilities of capture and co-authorship, while theoretical inquiry will explore broader cultural, social, and ethical implications of digital memory, perception, and participation. By letting practice and reflection inform one another, the research can investigate how ephemeral, performative spaces persist, transform, and resonate in a mediated digital landscape.
fakewhale
Founded in 2021, Fakewhale advocates the digital art market's evolution. Viewing NFT technology as a container for art, and leveraging the expansive scope of digital culture, Fakewhale strives to shape a new ecosystem in which art and technology become the starting point, rather than the final destination.
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